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Twenty-year-old Lidiya Petrova relaxes on the yacht of the C-in-C of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet in June 1982. She has been married to fifty-one year old Admiral Mikhail Petrov for just a few months. The couple are on an official inspection of the fleet. It is an idyllic life with the man who risked his career to save her from prison.
A few weeks later, the State Security Police, the dreaded KGB, arrest Petrov in their flat at Navy House in Sevastopol for alleged treason. Lidiya is thrown out on the street at 11.00pm in the clothes she is wearing.
As the wife of an alleged traitor, friends will not dare help her. She is unemployable and has just a few roubles in her handbag. As she walks away from Navy House in tears, a voice whispers to her from the bushes by the side of the road. It is her husband's ADC. Lt Lebed. Recalling how the admiral helped him, he offers his support.
Within 24 hours, Lebed realises the hunt is now on for Lidiya herself, and that he may be under suspicion. He arranges for her to stay with Irina Ustinova, the widow of a maritime border guard officer who was killed in action defending Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the USSR in 1981. Lebed had already helped Irina, who is by now very fond of him.
Why has the admiral been arrested, and why has a massive hunt been launched for the innocent 20 year old Lidiya who can pose no possible threat to the Soviet Union? A year previously, Admiral Petrov played a key role in defeating an assassination attempt against Leonid Brezhnev. The other key figure in those dramatic events was the head of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, General Georgi Ivanov.
With all exits from Sevastopol watched, Lidiya cannot risk the train journey to Moscow to ask Ivanov for help, so Irina Ustinova goes instead. Ivanov pulls in favours to extract Lidiya from the Crimea. In Moscow, Ivanov, Irina and Lidiya conclude that the plotters who survived the 1981 coup have some new venture in mind.
Irina's husband died because of their actions and the timid young widow, known at school as "the Little Mouse" is burning for revenge. She demands to be allowed to infiltrate the plot at the Moscow end, as General Markov, one of the conspirators has a penchant for vulnerable young women. "Dangled" in front of Markov, Irina is soon sharing his bed, but must put up with his "theatre widow" jokes, which are particularly cruel as she is a widow.
Lidiya returns to the Crimea. She knows that if she is arrested, she will be tortured in front of Mikhail to make him confess. Both young women are risking everything, one for a husband who died a hero, the other so that a rescue mission to free her husband can be launched. Will they succeed or die?
What of the plot itself? Although Lidiya and Irina do not know it, the plotters intend to impose a new hard line regime in Moscow making the Cold War much colder. In far off Uzbekistan at a sinister chemical weapons facility a deadly poison is being developed and tested on prisoners who die in agony.
Lidiya and a handful of Spetsnaz troops loyal to the admiral battle for survival in the remote Ai Petri mountains as 10,000 troops, tracker dogs and helicopter gunships search for them. Events move to an explosive climax in Moscow, the Crimea and Uzbekistan, but will any of the courageous band in the Ai Petri range survive?
What of Irina? Frightened and alone in Moscow, everything rests on shoulders of the timid and diminutive Irina, who stands less than 1.5m tall.
Author Robert Hendry analysed events in the USSR for over thirty years, is married to a Russian girl, and writes at first hand of the fleet base in Sevastopol, the Ai Petri mountains and many other locations. He has seen Soviet military equipment in use, so writes of what he knows. Insights into the Russian character and the characters keep their spirits up with genuine humour from the Soviet, making them real personalities.
Twenty-year-old Lidiya Petrova relaxes on the yacht of the C-in-C of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet in June 1982. She has been married to fifty-one year old Admiral Mikhail Petrov for just a few months. The couple are on an official inspection of the fleet. It is an idyllic life with the man who risked his career to save her from prison.
A few weeks later, the State Security Police, the dreaded KGB, arrest Petrov in their flat at Navy House in Sevastopol for alleged treason. Lidiya is thrown out on the street at 11.00pm in the clothes she is wearing.
As the wife of an alleged traitor, friends will not dare help her. She is unemployable and has just a few roubles in her handbag. As she walks away from Navy House in tears, a voice whispers to her from the bushes by the side of the road. It is her husband's ADC. Lt Lebed. Recalling how the admiral helped him, he offers his support.
Within 24 hours, Lebed realises the hunt is now on for Lidiya herself, and that he may be under suspicion. He arranges for her to stay with Irina Ustinova, the widow of a maritime border guard officer who was killed in action defending Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the USSR in 1981. Lebed had already helped Irina, who is by now very fond of him.
Why has the admiral been arrested, and why has a massive hunt been launched for the innocent 20 year old Lidiya who can pose no possible threat to the Soviet Union? A year previously, Admiral Petrov played a key role in defeating an assassination attempt against Leonid Brezhnev. The other key figure in those dramatic events was the head of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, General Georgi Ivanov.
With all exits from Sevastopol watched, Lidiya cannot risk the train journey to Moscow to ask Ivanov for help, so Irina Ustinova goes instead. Ivanov pulls in favours to extract Lidiya from the Crimea. In Moscow, Ivanov, Irina and Lidiya conclude that the plotters who survived the 1981 coup have some new venture in mind.
Irina's husband died because of their actions and the timid young widow, known at school as "the Little Mouse" is burning for revenge. She demands to be allowed to infiltrate the plot at the Moscow end, as General Markov, one of the conspirators has a penchant for vulnerable young women. "Dangled" in front of Markov, Irina is soon sharing his bed, but must put up with his "theatre widow" jokes, which are particularly cruel as she is a widow.
Lidiya returns to the Crimea. She knows that if she is arrested, she will be tortured in front of Mikhail to make him confess. Both young women are risking everything, one for a husband who died a hero, the other so that a rescue mission to free her husband can be launched. Will they succeed or die?
What of the plot itself? Although Lidiya and Irina do not know it, the plotters intend to impose a new hard line regime in Moscow making the Cold War much colder. In far off Uzbekistan at a sinister chemical weapons facility a deadly poison is being developed and tested on prisoners who die in agony.
Lidiya and a handful of Spetsnaz troops loyal to the admiral battle for survival in the remote Ai Petri mountains as 10,000 troops, tracker dogs and helicopter gunships search for them. Events move to an explosive climax in Moscow, the Crimea and Uzbekistan, but will any of the courageous band in the Ai Petri range survive?
What of Irina? Frightened and alone in Moscow, everything rests on shoulders of the timid and diminutive Irina, who stands less than 1.5m tall.
Author Robert Hendry analysed events in the USSR for over thirty years, is married to a Russian girl, and writes at first hand of the fleet base in Sevastopol, the Ai Petri mountains and many other locations. He has seen Soviet military equipment in use, so writes of what he knows. Insights into the Russian character and the characters keep their spirits up with genuine humour from the Soviet, making them real personalities.